The Diablo III Forums have word that the Scrolls of Companion and Scrolls of Reforging have been dropped from the Diablo III beta among the recently announced systems changes for Blizzard's action/RPG sequel (thanks VG247). Here's word:

Nethaera Community Manager A few more changes have made their way in to Diablo III beta patch 10, including the removal of Scrolls of Companion and Scrolls of Reforging, and we’ll be updating the patch notes to reflect that.

In both cases these are features we felt were underdeveloped and just not quite good enough for the game in their current state. The companion pets felt like they were mandatory to maximize play efficiency and some of the pets were too cutesy for the gritty, dark world of Sanctuary. Neither of those are issues we felt like we could solve without a lot of additional work, and we’re trying to close in on a solid release date for the game, not move further away. When weighing these systems against releasing the game, we decided to cut these scrolls and stay on track for the game’s release.

We think we can make companion pets into a much cooler system (both mechanically and visually), and evolve the reforging scrolls into a more meaningful system at some point in the future. For the time being, they will not be in the initial release of the game.

I'm not sure why there is so many cynical comments but pets won't be missed at all, specially the cute ones and specially in a Diablo game. Same goes for scroll of reforging, they won't be missed, getting gear by forging, killing mobs and shopping is enough.

Ive not played the beta since the original "we are changing stuff" announcment a few months ago; so yesterday i decided to give it another play through; have to say its looking better than it was a few months ago.

Just little things here and there it does feel better than it did. As for these features, well i dont really understand why the pet things had been dropped, its not like they were a major system anyhow more a "fun little thing" that collected gold for you. Certainly nothing totally unique like Torchlight where the pet was a real feature - so for me it could have been left in and then a different system could have been implemented - or they could add to the companion AI.

still tho the game does play well and is certainly better that it was last time i played.

For one i applaud blizzard for there beta process actaully being a beta; so many beta's thesedays are demo's - at least this is a real itteration process and testing for various game systems they have.

Everyone on Bluesnews is synical, get over it. edit: i cant spell, this is my disclaimer.

Alamar wrote on Jan 28, 2012, 16:17:Couldn't wade through all the comments saying mostly the same thing...

But what I find curious is the reaction to the way Blizzard has worked (successfully) for what, 15-20 years...

Like any development company, games or otherwise, they come up with an early list of features, and flesh them out... As their long long ass development goes on, some features just don't feel as good in the game as they did on paper...

The choice at that point is to either spend more time on them, or not... Some features they don't like, they've been iterating on 'forever', and feel they're important enough to keep in... Others, not so much...

The biggest difference in this process now, compared to what it was when everyone loved Blizzard, is that they're more vocal now... Let that stew : ) They have always dropped intended features from every one of their (major franchise) games.

And while 'when it's done' means something to one person, I've always felt that to Blizzard, it meant, when the product is high enough quality for it to ship; not when every single feature they (or you) ever wanted in there, is perfect.

And lastly, as much as any of our Blue's readers want this in their (grubby little) hands (minus those griping about the 'new' greedy Blizzard), Blizzard wants it out that much more than you : )

Blizzard business practice as usual, with more visibility...

-Alamar

Yeah, stuff gets cut all the time, and people are none the wiser, I wouldn't even consider it a matter of them being more vocal, it's just they usually don't do such overhauls in beta (or they try to avoid it, anyway,) where everyone is exposed to it. Especially one of this magnitude. I'm fairly certain everyone understands what, 'When it's done.' means when they say it, they may want more features, these people exist in all game communities, but they know it means 'when blizzard is satisfied with the product.'

You put new in quotes, but in actuality Blizzard has been Merged with Activision for over 3 years now. You might not have complaints about directions they've taken, but to not acknowledge that they are under different leadership is just wrong. A lot of their structure stayed intact, because what they had works. That doesn't mean they still don't receive orders from The Activision-Blizzard umbrella. They are just expected to handle things on their own.

That's because they aren't really under different leadership. The same company heads that have been there for 15 years are pretty much still there except for a few people here and there (the folks that left to form Arena.net, and Roper) And those people left before the Vivendi/Acitivison merger in the first place.

I too remember when they promised guild hall support in Diablo2, and a 1998 release date both didn't happen among other things that they also cut from that title.

That was also around the time I stopped really caring about Blizzard as they even back then had a habit of announcing all these great features early, entering development hell and feature creep galore and then tacking on 5 years a dev cycle to sort it all out.

I know people say their games are polished, personally, aside from Diablo 1, I've never seen any of their titles any different or any better than any other titles in their respected genres.

With the Warcrafts and Starcrafts, I always preferred Command and Conquer, Post Diablo, I went for deeper RPG's like the ones Bioware used to make. WoW? I'd done my share of EQ and other similar MMO's, hated the WC universe to begin with and never did understand what anyone ever saw in WoW that was really any different than similar fantasy mmo's.

Maybe I'm jaded, but for me, and I know I'm in the minority on this, I've never considered Blizzard that great of a dev house.

If Blizzard didn't have such open closed beta's, we would know about a few generic features, and them getting cut wouldn't really amount to much...

This a good point that I've been thinking myself. I get rather annoyed over betas that are just glorified demos, so it's been nice to see a company conducting actual beta testing. But seeing how people react to this is quickly demonstrating why companies have stopped doing it. When you beta test, you identify areas of improvement, and then make the necessary changes. When you have people reacting to changes as if it's causing huge problems, well, that's a PR nightmare.

This is what testing is supposed to accomplish people. Just because you had a "great idea" for a game doesn't mean that it's going to end up playing well. And if it doesn't, then a good company will respond to that fact and change or remove the feature. That is not a bad thing, it's a good thing - it's an indicator of a company that's actually trying to make an enjoyable game, rather than just rushing out the latest yearly money-maker.

Alamar wrote on Jan 28, 2012, 16:17:And lastly, as much as any of our Blue's readers want this in their (grubby little) hands (minus those griping about the 'new' greedy Blizzard), Blizzard wants it out that much more than you : )

Blizzard business practice as usual, with more visibility...

-Alamar

You put new in quotes, but in actuality Blizzard has been Merged with Activision for over 3 years now. You might not have complaints about directions they've taken, but to not acknowledge that they are under different leadership is just wrong. A lot of their structure stayed intact, because what they had works. That doesn't mean they still don't receive orders from The Activision-Blizzard umbrella. They are just expected to handle things on their own.

Actually, all I really mean by 'new', is that Blizzard has always been greedy, so yes, I don't feel that Activision is what turned them into this : )

AnointedSword wrote on Jan 28, 2012, 16:55:However, to make major game changes like this, this late into the game shows signs of bad decision making by leadership within the d3 team.

While opinion is always a large factor, I disagree that the above listed changes are 'major'. I also feel that, again, this is only a factor because we know about it... If Blizzard didn't have such open closed beta's, we would know about a few generic features, and them getting cut wouldn't really amount to much...

In the end, I hold my judgement of the game until I play it... Lamenting (at that time) about features that could have been in, will happen, but that's also nothing new. I enjoyed Torchlight, even though I couldn't play through it a second time, and I hate that they cut (or didn't intend to include from the get-go - who knows) multiplayer.

And I realize this (game feature visibility) is just part of our gaming culture... Hype needs to be generated early, and people feel cheated when the features they hyped about are removed, as they are, in just about every single big budget game ever released : )

Alamar wrote on Jan 28, 2012, 16:17:Couldn't wade through all the comments saying mostly the same thing...

But what I find curious is the reaction to the way Blizzard has worked (successfully) for what, 15-20 years...

Like any development company, games or otherwise, they come up with an early list of features, and flesh them out... As their long long ass development goes on, some features just don't feel as good in the game as they did on paper...

The choice at that point is to either spend more time on them, or not... Some features they don't like, they've been iterating on 'forever', and feel they're important enough to keep in... Others, not so much...

The biggest difference in this process now, compared to what it was when everyone loved Blizzard, is that they're more vocal now... Let that stew : ) They have always dropped intended features from every one of their (major franchise) games.

And while 'when it's done' means something to one person, I've always felt that to Blizzard, it meant, when the product is high enough quality for it to ship; not when every single feature they (or you) ever wanted in there, is perfect.

And lastly, as much as any of our Blue's readers want this in their (grubby little) hands (minus those griping about the 'new' greedy Blizzard), Blizzard wants it out that much more than you : )

Blizzard business practice as usual, with more visibility...

-Alamar

Yeah, stuff gets cut all the time, and people are none the wiser, I wouldn't even consider it a matter of them being more vocal, it's just they usually don't do such overhauls in beta (or they try to avoid it, anyway,) where everyone is exposed to it. Especially one of this magnitude. I'm fairly certain everyone understands what, 'When it's done.' means when they say it, they may want more features, these people exist in all game communities, but they know it means 'when blizzard is satisfied with the product.'

You put new in quotes, but in actuality Blizzard has been Merged with Activision for over 3 years now. You might not have complaints about directions they've taken, but to not acknowledge that they are under different leadership is just wrong. A lot of their structure stayed intact, because what they had works. That doesn't mean they still don't receive orders from The Activision-Blizzard umbrella. They are just expected to handle things on their own.

To believe that it is business as usual at Blizzard when concerning D3 is not looking at all the facts. This late into the game, they made major changes. Yes, they even released the CE info, then announced major changes...This alone should raise a red flag...With that said, I have been a Blizzard fan for a long time. However, to make major game changes like this, this late into the game shows signs of bad decision making by leadership within the d3 team. I have major problems with certain individuals on the boards (and it has nothing to do with my forum bans)acting like nothing was done wrong...You know what, be honest about it and move the hell on...

With that said, I have two CEs on preorder and I will keep them on preorder until the game is released (unless more bs is handed to me). I will also make sure Blizzard gets a nice long letter written to them sent via certified mail...

Draugr wrote on Jan 28, 2012, 16:18:[...] I might just wait for a freind to be done with it then play their copy. [...]

That'll only work if he doesn't have other games in his battle.net account he wants to play while you play diablo 3.Or he has to be willing to set up a separate bnet account just for d3 so that you can use it later.

Draugr wrote on Jan 28, 2012, 16:18:[...] I might just wait for a freind to be done with it then play their copy. [...]

That'll only work if he doesn't have other games in his battle.net account he wants to play while you play diablo 3.Or he has to be willing to set up a separate bnet account just for d3 so that you can use it later.

theyarecomingforyou wrote on Jan 28, 2012, 14:45:I haven't played any of the previous games but I found DIII to be very enjoyable and I can see myself playing it a lot. I'm not at all concerned by the scale of the changes being made as I didn't come across any issues with the beta. No bugs, no glaring issues. My only complaint is the Blizzard downloader but at least it's not Origin.

Having played the beta myself, and previous diablo games,I'm still undecided, Im leaning towoards just wait for a freind to be done with it, then play their copy. Im not too excited about a lot of the changes they made, as they seem quite silly, (Not being able to switch between your abilities on the fly, for example.)

I know just by playing the demo I'm going to spend a fraction of the time playing Diablo 3 that I did Diablo 2. They are going to keep all of the stuff that keeps people around (drops, etc. All of the 'addictive' elements.) but they aren't going to be able to match the quality of gameplay diablo 2 had, and this is what's going to cut it short for me. It'll at least be fun for a bit. Activisions main concern is going to be making sure the real money AH is still generating them income, and all decisions are influenced by that.

This also makes me recall about how when the game was supposed to be released it was supposed to have a guild hall system in it. they took it out, and we never saw it. If this, and other cuts which they plan to release in the future went the same way, I don't think I'd be too surprised. The only difference this time around is the real money AH will be making them money, the question is, how much are they going to put back into Diablo 3?

And this headline is not innacurate, people. There were cuts to the game before, and here are some more. Many are willing to say this headline is just around to grab clicks, because it's not true, but they never explain why it's not true. You might consider it sensationalist (I personally do not.) But that doesn't make it untrue, and I think it's people who frequent this website would want to be aware of.

Couldn't wade through all the comments saying mostly the same thing...

But what I find curious is the reaction to the way Blizzard has worked (successfully) for what, 15-20 years...

Like any development company, games or otherwise, they come up with an early list of features, and flesh them out... As their long long ass development goes on, some features just don't feel as good in the game as they did on paper...

The choice at that point is to either spend more time on them, or not... Some features they don't like, they've been iterating on 'forever', and feel they're important enough to keep in... Others, not so much...

The biggest difference in this process now, compared to what it was when everyone loved Blizzard, is that they're more vocal now... Let that stew : ) They have always dropped intended features from every one of their (major franchise) games.

And while 'when it's done' means something to one person, I've always felt that to Blizzard, it meant, when the product is high enough quality for it to ship; not when every single feature they (or you) ever wanted in there, is perfect.

And lastly, as much as any of our Blue's readers want this in their (grubby little) hands (minus those griping about the 'new' greedy Blizzard), Blizzard wants it out that much more than you : )

Ehhhh.. I'll still play it. I have been on a cliffhanger ending for like 10 years now.

Blizzard games are usually pretty good anyhow. Sometimes I think they are over-polished (yes that is possible). Sometimes I think they are uninspired and derivative too but they're still worth a solid B.

Beelzebud wrote on Jan 27, 2012, 20:45:What is going on over there? Starting to smell like a train wreck.

Cutting stuff to make a release date doesn't seem too unusual. The cynic in me expects them to be added back as micro-transactions though.

I'd agree about cutting not being unusual if this was the only announcement about it. But there's other core changes announced recently that require the entire game to be rebalanced at this late date.

Dades wrote on Jan 28, 2012, 01:18:I hope this isn't the developer attitude about dropped loot because there is already too much reliance on crafted loot since its so superior to all of the known beta drops.

That would be because the beta is restricted to NORMAL difficulty mode, not nightmare or anything else. In hardcore, there will be much better loot dropped.

Doombringer wrote on Jan 28, 2012, 10:23:I'm no tin-foil-hat type guy, but it seems really suspicious that all these changes would come very late in the game's development cycle, and at least one dev would publicly, though amicably, leave the company at the same time.

I'm not sure I agree. If you look at how much games like Team Fortress 2 and World of Warcraft change after release it's not surprising to see such large changes. Don't forget that after release you're going to see some pretty big changes.

I just don't understand the pessimism. Having played the beta I found it to be very enjoyable. Now, I don't give a shit about maximising my experience - I just play for fun. I love comparing all the different item stats and finding what works best for me. Yet there will be plenty of others that play entirely for the stats and those are the sort of people that will be annoyed by changes like this.

I haven't played any of the previous games but I found DIII to be very enjoyable and I can see myself playing it a lot. I'm not at all concerned by the scale of the changes being made as I didn't come across any issues with the beta. No bugs, no glaring issues. My only complaint is the Blizzard downloader but at least it's not Origin.

Fibrocyte wrote on Jan 28, 2012, 05:14:Blue is just wrong making such an absurd headline for this topic.

How is it wrong or absurd? There are features that were in the beta that Blizzard themselves are announcing that they are removing. This is the second time they've done so in a short period thus, "More Diablo III Cuts".

I truly have to wonder... when I look back to the other changes they recently announced, and how one of the D3 devs left Blizzard right around that time...

I'm no tin-foil-hat type guy, but it seems really suspicious that all these changes would come very late in the game's development cycle, and at least one dev would publicly, though amicably, leave the company at the same time.

Perhaps some edicts came down from upper-upper management that at least one guy did not like. I can just imagine the brass saying "cut this, change this, we want X, Y and Z for future profits..."